


tell me how can we keep holding on

by oneofthemuses



Category: The Rookie (TV 2018)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Gen, Introspection, Not Beta Read, Not a Love Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:22:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24247987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneofthemuses/pseuds/oneofthemuses
Summary: Rachel is working so hard trying to convince herself that her feelings are okay and she’s fine with her relationship ending even though the reality of it feels shitty and casts a pall over what should be a happy and exciting time.  She’s mad even though she doesn’t think she has a good reason to be and she’s mourning what they didn’t have but might’ve, that lost potential that felt boundless.  It annoys her, that she’s so upset over a man, and knowing that sends her thoughts spiraling all over again.ORRachel is leaving and Tim is staying and maybe they're still together, and maybe they like each other a lot more than they thought they would, but they aren't being honest about the most basic of questions - why are they trying so hard?
Relationships: Tim Bradford & Lucy Chen, Tim Bradford/Rachel Hall
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	tell me how can we keep holding on

**Author's Note:**

> If you've chatted with me, you know that I struggle with the character of Rachel - because I want to love her! But something about the writing (and maybe the acting?) just doesn't work for me. I relate to the idea of Rachel but so much of her character and her relationship with Tim happens off screen or relies on exposition. So this is my attempt to make peace with Rachel. 
> 
> Fair warning, there's basically no dialogue and it's probably unnecessarily lengthy and I am the queen of run-on sentences and overusing commas. Also maybe listen to Dua Lipa's Scared to Be Lonely (https://youtu.be/Exdt3upYpqA) since I had it on repeat while writing this and that's where the fic title comes from. Canon compliant to the end of S2 if you haven't watched the finale.

Rachel is sitting in the back of the Lyft staring out the window. This is the last time she’s going to see LA for months. Maybe she should be feeling sentimental, or antsy even, as the airport and her one-way flight to New York draws closer. Instead she’s stuck in the same repetitive cycle of half-formed thoughts _itwasgood.therewasrealaffectionthere.exceptheforgot.itdoesn’tmatter.i’mleaving.he’sstaying_ alternately angry and wistful. Rachel is working so hard trying to convince herself that her feelings are okay and she’s fine with her relationship ending even though the reality of it feels shitty and casts a pall over what should be a happy and exciting time. She’s mad even though she doesn’t think she has a good reason to be and she’s mourning what they didn’t have but might’ve, that lost potential that felt boundless. It annoys her that she’s so upset over a man and knowing that sends her spiraling all over again.

She’s pulled out of her thoughts by the sound of sirens. There’s some part of her that’s immediately and suddenly hopeful. She quashes that spark as quickly and ruthlessly as she can which of course means it’s flaring bright and hot despite herself because being tough and cynical have never been her strong points. There’s a piece of her, the emotional core that has always felt so deeply, that flashes straight into white-hot rage that something as irritating and mundane as being pulled over by the police manages to shove her jumbled painful feelings right back in her face when she’s trying so hard to push them down. 

It brings her right back to the beginning when she had decided almost immediately, on their first date point in fact, that it wasn’t going to last between them. By the next day, she found herself wishing it would no matter what the rational side of her said. She liked ( _likes_ ) Tim though it made no sense, though she probably shouldn’t have. He's a white male, a cop, a meat eating hardass, and former military. If you could design a person that, in theory, is her intrinsic opposite, it’s Tim. As a woman of colour, a Black woman at that, as a social worker, as a vegan - she and Tim represented wildly different ends on the philosophical spectrum on the face of it and she recognized that. Tim, however, is the exception that proves the rule - he’s ethical and principled, and he believes in doing the right thing even when it's hard, and he holds so much power but he’s endlessly compassionate. Lucy told her, that first morning, that he had a good heart and Rachel _sees_ that. She wonders, truly, if she hadn’t run into Lucy at the station, if she hadn’t been complaining about the dismal selection of too-shallow men in LA in their group chat, would Lucy have thought to set them up at all? She’ll never ask the question, but she suspects she knows the answer all the same.

The car pulls to a smooth stop and she can hear the loudspeaker of the police car announce that the officer wants the passenger to step out and Rachel knows that’s not normal. It takes less than a second for that hopeful piece of her to rise up triumphantly in vindication. She steps out and Tim is there, smiling, and for a few minutes, it’s everything she wants.

Even as Tim is apologizing and admitting that he was prepared to end it at dinner and follows it up by expressing a willingness to try long distance, Rachel can see he’s not committed, not really. There’s a hesitancy to his words, like he wants to want it, so he’s trying. He’s saying the words they both want to hear, he’s just not _believing_ any of it. He showed up and that probably means _something_ , Rachel just isn’t sure _what_.

The thing is, Rachel considered staying for Tim. It goes against everything in her, everything she tells her friends and the young people she works with, except. It's been so good, so easy, with Tim. It’s hard to let that go especially in the face of completely upending everything else in her life by moving across the country. As she smiles back and kisses him, Rachel can’t stop herself from wondering _why_ it’s been so easy. 

Rachel knows that Tim is recently divorced but she doesn’t know the details, only that it took a long time to _really_ end and it caused a lot of hurt all around. It’s not something either of them has broached yet and she hasn’t pushed. Lucy had shaken her head the few times Rachel tried to gently feel it out. It's not like Rachel isn't aware that Tim values his privacy and she wouldn't dream of denying that Tim and Lucy have shared more in their 12 months working together than a lot of people do in _years_ of friendship. So she gets it, why they’ll keep each other’s confidences and why they can talk about private, painful things that she has no knowledge of and likely never will, but it means that she’s missing out on this big part of Tim, the context behind his actions - his story - and Rachel feels it, the distance between them, like a literal gulf or disconnect that they can't seem to bridge.

Tim feels it too, she's sure, and they can’t move forward until they talk about all the things they’re very carefully _not_ talking about. It just never seems like they’re _there_ , no matter how much they both will it. It’s why, despite his urging, she couldn’t quite bring herself to leave stuff at his place and he hasn’t left anything at hers. It’s a new level of intimacy and neither of them seems willing to start the conversation on why they’re stalled in the face of it. They’re both adults, they’ve had other far more serious relationships, but knowing what they have to do isn’t the issue. Maybe it’s because they understand all too well how to resolve it, but in this one thing, neither of them can drum up the courage to confront the holding pattern they're comfortably settled in.

With some time passed between then and now, she can think back to when Lucy was abducted and hurt, and how Tim went radio silent for days. She hadn’t necessarily thought much of it at the time because they were still so new to each other. Rachel didn’t find out that Lucy had been taken or that Lucy had been found, nothing, until she was at the station for work and she ran into Wesley - he’d been helping to vet information, had been legitimately helpful during the precinct’s frantic search. Despite recognizing her, it wasn’t until he verified that it was okay to share information that he told her anything at all. Everyone in that division had pulled together to find Lucy and closed ranks to protect her afterward. Even though Lucy was her friend and Tim was her boyfriend, Rachel hadn't been invited in, not in the same way as Wesley, the price of admission not yet clear to her. It hadn't bothered her at the time but she thinks now it was maybe a sign of things to come. 

She had shown up to the hospital the next morning and found Tim already there at Lucy’s side. They had talked briefly, but their relationship hadn’t been the focus for either of them, not while they watched Lucy lying so still in a hospital bed with bruises on her face and arms. Now, though, Rachel remembers the hollow look on Tim’s face, the exhaustion apparent in his tense body, and his hands clenched into fists at his sides, covered in bruises and still speckled with blood. She doesn’t begrudge him or Lucy the deep and profound feelings between them, and god, she wouldn’t wish that trauma on anyone, but she struggles to think of a time when Tim has demonstrated that depth of emotion _around_ her. He can be soft and kind with her, romantic and sweet, practically the perfect boyfriend. But he's never quite as real or raw as he was in that hospital room. Tim has never talked to her about what happened, neither has Lucy, so her information is piecemeal, and it’s just one more thing on the list of topics that feels off-limits despite how it has informed every piece of him since.

And now... It feels like they missed their window. Rachel can’t justify any of it, no matter how she turns it around in her head; staying for him, turning down her dream job for him, waiting for him, none of it. Truth be told, Rachel loves parts of her job, but child protection was never her forever plan. Working in an overloaded, underfunded system that has quantitatively hurt Black families, families of colour, marginalized identities. It can be soul crushing, and that’s ignoring the overwhelming stress, the lack of support from management and state, the vicarious trauma, the constant feeling that you’re not doing enough while simultaneously being too intrusive, the balance between protecting children and preserving families. She’s passionate about her beliefs but the system is stifling and she knows she doesn’t want this to be her future. The job in New York is a dream she didn’t think she’d ever get to live. She’ll get to be an advocate, a voice for people who are victims of the system she used to represent, and she’ll get to change policy. She wants this so desperately. Tim wants it for her. He just doesn’t want it _with_ her. Rachel knows she’s not really being fair, she’s selling them both short, but she’s seen Tim when he desperately wants something: the fierceness, the determination, the drive, the way he pushes through every obstacle to make it happen. Only, it’s never been directed at her. 

Rachel can already see how this will play out, each broken promise and half-hearted excuse. Because there will be other nights just like this one. They won’t be quite so monumental, won’t feel like a death knell for their relationship, but there will be nights just like this where Tim gets caught up in the job and forgets about their Skype date. Over time, there will be days when her work commitments, or her attempts to make friends, or, hell, something as simple as the time difference means she’ll be busy on his days off, too distracted to respond to that text. Eventually, they’ll drift apart and they’ll both be sad for a while, or maybe, more accurately, they’ll both be sorry, but not enough to change for the other or to make any concessions. Rachel knows, even now, that they’ll try to make it work and it’ll be nice, good even, but only for a little bit. 

The day will come, sooner than either of them wants to admit, when she’ll invite Tim out to visit and he’ll think about coming, he really will, but the logistics or the expense will be too much and the lure of her won’t be enough. Rachel won’t hold it against him, not truly. She won’t be able to help but measure if it’s worth it or not to schedule time with Tim into the short window that she has when she makes the plans for her sporadic visits home and the answer will be no each time. She’ll end up flying into San Diego instead of LA because that’s closer to her dad and if she’s going to travel across the country, he’s going to be her priority. She‘ll make the trek out to LA, of course she will. She has friends here after all and it’s only a couple of hours away. But she'll drive out to do brunch with her old colleagues or grab dinner with her college friends - because both her and Tim are too busy to try planning around each other only to walk away disappointed. She spares a fleeting thought for whether the break up she’s already anticipating will surprise her father after they made it past his disapproval and the revelation of the Huntington’s diagnosis hanging over her head. A second, deeply uncharitable thought follows quickly, if Tim said the Huntington’s didn’t matter because he knew they wouldn’t last together. She puts that bitter idea to bed immediately, she refuses to second guess every moment of their relationship and Tim has never shown himself as anything other than steadfast in everything he does, their relationship included. 

Her thoughts circle back to what it’s going to be like in a week, a month, a year. His time, and hers too, is precious and the distance will make it even more so. It feels a little bit like she’s overthinking something that is or will be moot in short order. By the time she’s due back for a visit, they’ll have already drifted apart and meeting up won’t be a consideration because Rachel won’t reach out to ask. Doing so will only prolong their relationship in the same way she thinks his marriage might have taken too long to resolve, fizzling out into a vague resentment and invisible scars. Tim won’t leave his life, his livelihood here in LA, and Rachel is going to build a life in New York. That life, she knows with bone deep certainty, is going to be amazing. It just won’t include Tim.

But they’ll try for now. Rachel can’t bring herself to wonder if this drawn out falling away from each other, the slow fade, that she’s just signed up for is going to be worse than any decisive split right here and now could ever be. She can hear his radio going off, something about Nolan, and she vaguely recognizes the name as one Lucy has mentioned. Tim is already half checked out, trying to pay attention to what’s being said, and Rachel silently lets him go. She kisses him and she’s glad, as she sees him check his phone and Lucy’s name flashes on the screen, that he’ll have his people around him. He’ll have what he needs to move on when it comes time. She doesn’t fool herself into thinking that theirs is a great love that will wound him forevermore, but they could’ve been happy and solid, she thinks, if they had both wanted it just a little bit more. That’s the bottom line, though, isn’t it? Whatever the reasons, they didn’t want each other enough. Even knowing that, she still can’t bring herself to say goodbye just yet. Instead, they make their empty promises quietly and she watches him pull away after he gets back into his squad car.

She slides into the Lyft, an apology for the hold up already on her lips and smiles as the driver waves it off and asks if that was her boyfriend in reply.

“Yeah, he was.”

She watches the city pass by, the familiar blur vibrant and bright through the window, and settles into the backseat feeling wistful as the miles go by until LA is only visible in the rearview. 

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written fic in five years (at least) and I haven't written in The Rookie fandom before. I appreciate constructive feedback but bear in mind, it's been in a while.


End file.
